Funko Takes a Stand: Itch.io’s Yarn Project Faces Suspension Over Collectible Concerns
The indie sports marketplace itch.io appears to have been unexpectedly disrupted over the weekend by collectible manufacturer Funko.
According to an X post from the official itch.io account, the platform was taken offline by Funko (creator of the wildly popular Funko Pop! collectible figures) and its AI-driven content protection tool, Brand Shield.
“[Brand Shield] generated a false phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who disregarded our reply and simply disabled the domain,” stated itch on social media, taking a moment to label the application as “garbage.”
“Additionally, for clarity, we removed the disputed page as soon as we received the notice since it’s not worth challenging such matters. Nevertheless, our registrar’s automated system likely triggered the domain shutdown because no one assessed our confirmation of removal.”
Itch.io co-founder Leaf Corcoran provided further details in a post on Hacker News, explaining that the phishing report made by Funko and Brand Shield was related to a fan page for an online game called Funko Fusion, which is based on the Funko Pop! toy line.
“As far as I can tell, someone created a fan page for an existing Funko Pop online game (Funko Fusion), featuring links to the official site and screenshots of the game,” wrote Corcoran.
“The BrandShield software is probably programmed to eliminate all ‘unauthorized’ uses of their trademark, hence they submitted reports directly to our host and registrar asserting there was ‘fraud and phishing’ occurring, likely to provoke escalation rather than following the customary DMCA/cease-and-desist process. Therefore, I genuinely believe they are the instigators in this situation.”
Despite removing the fan page and disabling the related account after being contacted by itch.io’s host Linode and registrar iwantmyname, Corcoran mentioned that the latter never indicated the case had been resolved. He then received a downtime notification.
“I observed that the domain status had been changed to ‘serverHold’ on iwantmyname’s domain panel. We haven’t received any other abuse reports from iwantmyname aside from this one. I suspect no one on their end ‘closed’ the ticket, resulting in it entering an automatic system that disabled the domain after a certain number of days,” Corcoran added.
“I’ve been trying to contact them through their abuse and support emails, but likely received no reply due to the timing, so I opted to ‘escalate’ the matter myself on social media.”
At the time of this writing, itch.io seems to be back online, although it provided a workaround for those affected by the situation. “If you know how to adjust your hosts file, use: 45.33.107.166,” the company stated in a follow-up post.
“If you modify your hosts file, please remember to remove all lines after the domain is restored. Though we typically maintain an IP address for a while, it might change if we update our back-end infrastructure. If the downtime exceeds 8 hours, we will likely prioritize deploying a new domain. Hopefully, things can be resolved before then.”
Game Developer has reached out to Brand Shield, Funko, and Itch.io for further information.